How the Kona Comfort Vacation Rental Process Works in a Nutshell...
Most People Do It All in Email
and Pay With Our Secure On-Line GateWay...
This is probably for most of us the most efficient way, as you and us can receive and
send information when you have the time between normal daily chores and
responsibilities (including taking care of our vacation rentals!) --
We typically check and respond to email questions and inquiries mid morning, early
evening, late evening, sometimes more..
We try to get to all incoming inquiries within 3 or 4 hours!
Email lets you see your charges broken down and allows us time to check our bookings.
Here are the processes step by step...
(1) First, CHECK AVAILABILITY here on-line to match rentals to when you want to stay..
To check availability now <<click HERE>>.
(2) Then, you email and ask for a quote..
To email now <<click HERE>>.
We then put your information into our booking software and email you back a quote.
(3) Then you receive the quote in email from us with all charges broken down.
(4) Then it is simple to pay (1) we send you a link in the email or (2) you can go on-line and
pay..
To pay now <<click HERE>>.
You are not forced to pay on-line but it is the best method for you and fast and safe.
To see other payment methods we have a page that goes into details: <<click HERE>>.
(5) When you pay, we are notified by email of the payment (when you pay online).
(6) Then
(a) if you make a partial payment, we email back that we got that payment;
(b) if you make full payment, we email back the local driving directions and the
code to the lockbox.
(7) When you arrive you use the driving directions to get to the house, and you use the lockcode
to get the key to your rental.
(8) When you depart, you lock the rental and put the key back into the lockbox, and use the
driving directions in reverse.
Usually the time from asking about the space to finalizing with a payment happens within a day
or so, it can be faster. We work often in the fields or on the farm and much of our computer time
is in the early mornings and late evenings, but our time zone may be several hours different
from yours.
To see how time zones compare <<click HERE>>.
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On-Line Booking Streamlines The Process And Collects Your Credit
Card Information If You Want To Use It...
The on-line booking will not process less than two nights, you would need to email for a manual
quote.
The on-line booking also will not process stays longer than 14 days, you would need to email for
a manual quote for stays longer than 2 weeks.
To email now <<click HERE>>.
THE ON-LINE BOOKING
(1) CHECKS FOR AVAILABLE RENTAL SPACES
(2) AND THEN COLLECTS THE INFORMATION WE NEED FROM YOU WITH A FORM!
To go to on-line booking <<click HERE>>.
We then put your information into our booking software and email you back a quote. From that
point it is the same as just sending an email above...
(3) Then you receive the quote in email from us with all charges broken down.
(4) Then it is simple to go on-line and pay..(if you sent your credit card information we ask for
you to authorize any charges)
To pay now <<click HERE>>.
(5) When you pay, we are notified by email of the payment; if you sent your card data we
process from our side;
(6) Then
(a) if you made a partial payment, we email back that we got that payment;
(b) if you made full payment, we email back the local driving directions and the
code to the lockbox.
(7) When you arrive you use the driving directions to get to the house, and you use the lockcode
to get the key to your rental.
(8) When you depart, you lock the rental and put the key back into the lockbox, and use the
driving directions in reverse.
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DISCOUNTS FOR LENGTH OF STAY
We discount by length of stay. Discounts and promos are subject to change but these have
worked for several years and we do not anticipate fixing what isn't broken.
●
The current discounts are 5% for 7 days, 10% for 14 days, 20% for 21 days and 25% at 28
days, 35% for 30+ days, 45% for 60+ days. These are based on continuous lengths of time.
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How to Estimate What Your Charges Would Be
(or How Do We Calculate Our Charges)...
All rental charges for vacation rentals must be taxed -- if you are trying to figure without a quote,
add 12.42% taxes to rent (to the nights staying x rate); as well each booking will have a
refundable damage deposit added to the rent total, but the damage deposit is not taxable.
There is no cleaning fee.
Each unit has a base rate for x number of occupants, if you have extra occupants that is
charged at $10 each per night plus tax.
You can adjust the daily rate if you qualify after staying continuously for several nights, look for
the DISCOUNT information (above this section) for when those apply and at what percentage.
You would apply the discount to the rental portion, not to the total with taxes or the total with
deposit.
********
For example if you are staying two nights and the rate is $50 and the base rate is for 2 people
and there are two of you, and the Damage Deposit is $50, it would be $50 x 2 = $100, then add
12.42% tax ($12.42) = $112.42 subtotal + $50 Damage Deposit, so the total charges would be
$162.42, $50 of which would be refundable.
********
Second example -- if you are staying seven nights and the rate is $50 and the base rate is for 2
people and there are two of you, and the Damage Deposit is $50, it would be $50 x 7 = $350,
but we discount 5% for 7 days so $350 x .05 = $17.50, take $17.50 from $350 for $332.50, then
add 12.42% tax ($41.30) = $373.80 subtotal + $50 Damage Deposit, so the total charges would
be $423.80, $50 of which would be refundable.
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What is the Damage Deposit
What is the Hold or Booking Deposit?...
We apply two types of deposits.
●
The Damage Deposit, which is refundable and would be applied if you did not clean up,
took items, stayed late, common courtesy types of things. The Damage Deposit for each rental
is shown on the RATES and FEATURES page.
●
The Hold or Booking or Security Deposit, this is what you would need to put down to
establish a reservation. In some cases we will not take a Hold or Booking or Security Deposit but
require the full amount to be paid in advance.
This works by a two part test. If your amount is less than or equal to $500 OR if your arrival is
less than 60 days, then the whole amont is due and payable to make the reservation.
Otherwise, if you arrive in more than 60 days AND your amount is more than $500, you can put
down at least $500 as a Hold/Booking/Security Deposit to make the reservation. At that point we
will not allow other potential guests to consider that span of time for that rental.
If you have made one payment to hold your reservation, and you are staying two months or
less, your balance is to be paid 60 days before your arrival date.
●
If you are staying for more than 60 days, you will make a payment 60 days before you
arrive to pay forward for two months and at each month of your stay you just keep your rent
paid two months in advance until you are two months from departure, then you have no more
rent to pay -- fairly simple to grasp. As with rentals that last less than two months, your damage
deposit is always refunded for any cancellation before you arrive if that situation arises.
Any rent amount for a stay of up to two months must be paid 60 days before arrival.
If your stay is more than two months, you keep paid two months in advance.
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What should you do about Cleaning Up Before You Leave?...
We clean and put back to original order the units between clients. We do not do maid service
during your stay but will supply the materials you need to freshen up your unit; for stays longer
than 7 days, the washer and dryer are made available to you. You must give us priority for
washer and dryer use when we are on site to clean and turn over a rental.
When you leave you may leave your dirty linens for us to clean, but please put wet materials in a
bathtub or on a tile/stone floor. Remember we live in a warm climate all clothing and linens need
to be aired out and not left wet or they will mildew.
Each rental has a vacuum cleaner -- and other cleaning materials for you to use as needed...
you should leave your rental reasonable --you are not staying at a motel nor should you treat us
like a motel-- we give each guest a spotless environment when they arrive and you should leave
it broom clean. If you do not want to clean your dishes, remove your leftover food, take out your
trash, rent a motel and pay motel rates because they have the staff paid to do that. We don't
charge for cleaning but don't expect to need to wash your dishes or take out your leftovers after
you leave.
Dishes and utensils are supplied to you spotless and should be left clean.
Your refrigerator and freezer were empty and clean when you arrived, please do not leave
leftovers and dirty dishes for us.
Unopened cans of drinks, sealed bottles of water, other usable food stuffs you want to leave for
the next party is fine and many people do that, however do not leave cups of grease, spoiled or
open food in the fridge or anywhere else requiring us to throw it away for you that is just a waste
of our time and your responsibility not ours -- old or open food and all your other trash should be
cleaned up and taken to the trash before we come in to clean. We spend lots of time between
guests and sometimes guests come in the same day you depart -- please help us do our best
by cooperating.
Your trash containers should be emptied frequently into the main trash that is located at the
ground level between the house & the front of the garage in a corridor that runs to the right side
of the garage.
Keep trash covers on all trash containers, in our climate this is a problem if overlooked.
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Can you be more detailed about what we are expected to do
regarding cleaning; getting the Damage Deposit returned; what is
the process?
Vacation rentals are not like a motel or hotel where you come in and dirty the place up and then
a maid comes in and makes it nice, then you come in the next day and dirty it up and that next
day a maid comes in and makes it all nice all over in a loop.
There is a significant difference between rates for one thing. You are paying for the privilege to
make a mess in the more costly hotel or motel. You also would be staying in a cloned “every unit
is about the same box” environment with busy parking lots, strangers roaming up and down
halls, usually in a location that is hot and often next to traffic and noise.
Renting a vacation rental is like
borrowing a home, and you should
treat it like a home.
Perhaps 1 guest in 12 or 15 will come in and make a mess and treat us like a discount motel.
They might leave dirty dishes, leave grease coated on the stove, leave spoiled food and dirty
dishes with food in the refrigerator, won’t take out their last collection of trash.
We have also had guests "forget" their check out times: We arrive to clean, then we have to
leave since they are still in the space, we end up wasting a whole afternoon waiting; we get back
home at 9 or 10PM. Guests come after another checks out all the time -- these types of things
could be hard on other guests as well as hard on us.
The damage deposit helps some to pay attention to the rules who want to protect their money.
In the rare situations where we need it, the damage deposit helps reimburse us for over
extended stays or our time and trouble during infractions... We really just want to come in,
clean, tidy up, get ready for the next guests. For that one odd apple in the barrel Damage
Deposits seem necessary.
The things you should do before you leave:
●
Take any food on dishes or in plastic wrap, etc. that is stored in the refrigerator/freezer or
elsewhere and dispose of it into your trash and clean the dishes.
●
Many people load their last dirty dishes and wash in the dishwasher — that is fine.
●
Take the trash you collect out to the main trash bins between the house and the garage on
the ground level.
●
If you have edible sealed food like bottles of water, cans of food, people do leave those for
the next guest and that is fine, just don’t leave opened or spoiled food that is just being lazy and
inconsiderate.
●
Try to leave the premises broom clean — we obviously come in and clean (you will see
when you arrive that we are very picky and want things right) -- but leaving a trail of trash on the
floor, throwing luggage tags on the floor when there are trash containers is not considerate and
unnecessary. There are brooms, vacuum cleaners, cleaning clothes, cleaning supplies, trash
containers and trash bags left there for you to take care of the place while you are living there
and they should be used.
●
Put your wet towels in the bathtub, put them on a tile/stone floor, or spread them where
they can air out. In our climate they can mildew fast. Avoid placing wet towels on carpets -- the
carpet will get wet and can itself mildew.
●
You don't have to make your beds or collect bed linens as you leave. Some people do and
that is fine -- we have been known to do that when we stayed at hotels -- we know where you
are coming from.
●
Turn off your fans and lights as you leave. It is good practice to turn off devices when you
are not in a room or otherwise using them. Electricity is very high in Hawaii (about 32.2 cents/
KWh). Devices just left on when you are not using them is a waste of money, causes rental rates
to go up.
●
Leave on time, only later if you have prior permission. Please let us know if you will leave
before the “designated check out time” (we may come in earlier to clean -- that is especially
helpful when someone is coming after you leave).
●
Please don’t arrive early unless you have contacted us for prior permission. If you know you
will arrive after the “designated check in time” please let us know (that might give us time to
work longer or not have to rush between the last guest that left and you coming in).
We are not going to come in with a list and count the Kleenex. People forget to put a key back,
they mail it back. People do break a glass or a dish from time to time; a fork gets bent, these are
no big deals -- things wear out we replace things all the time; we don’t expect people to be
perfect — just not abusive.
We are concerned with the very few who leave their trash, don't wash their last dirty dishes or
don't clean out the refrigerator of their old food. We do not expect this and it costs us a lot of
time and can be stressful when we have back to back guest situations.
Many places change cleaning fees. We are resistant to that. Right now we seem to attract a lot
of people who are very nice and want a nice place to stay but want reasonable rates. I don’t
know the number of times we have heard from these people how much they appreciate and are
pleased with the spaces -- they leave the units nice when they leave and they come back. That
is the type of people we want to keep attracting so we will stick to our guns to keep the rental
rate down, the deposit basic and easy and hope we continue to have predominantly a very good
guest experience. I think if we start adding $100 or $250 cleaning fees like many places have
done we might unintentionally attract more people who leave us an untidy mess -- and then this
business becomes a big hassle, it would be impossible to turn a unit in one day, we would dread
to come in to see the mess and ultimately we would not appreciate our customers or enjoy
doing this. It all boils down to mutual respect and common courtesy. A few people just have this
concept from vacations at motels that “it is alright to leave a mess”, but they confuse the fact we
are not a motel nor are you paying motel rates.
When you leave, we come right in at your departure time and start cleaning. Most of the time
this is very routine and I mark your record in my notes as all was okay. In fact many times I will
have the time to issue a reversal to your card while we are there (it can take 3 or 4 hours for the
bedding to wash and dry!). In instances where the guest paid months before we have to send
them a check or a PayPal payment as we can only reverse back payments for 60 days. If it is a
particularly hectic day I may do this later at home — but we try very hard to send back your
damage deposit promptly.
The one odd guest that leaves a big mess, takes stuff they should not, does not check out on
time and ties us up all afternoon when we made a trip in expecting them to be departed, yes we
keep the damage deposit, that is what it is there for.
On a more positive note --> Our Repeat customers do not need to place a damage deposit,
and they are “grandfathered” at the current rate against rate hikes in the future. We appreciate
our guests who have shown they are responsible and reward them for their efforts.
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PETS
The Tranquil House rental has some provisions such as gates that lock to keep the pet inside
and a complete fenced front yard; the Cozy Flat has some provisions such as a fully enclosed
front lanai that is gated. Please email for a case by case basis decision.
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GUIDEBOOK
To see our advice about using a guidebook <<click HERE>>.
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FAQ
Our clients have asked some important and interesting questions and when we answer we also
put these onto our FAQ page, please read it to see what others already thought to ask: <<click
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SOME BASIC INFORMATION
●
We do not make any charges to your credit card when you provide that information before
you agree to the costs and authorize it.
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All charges are clearly shown on the quotes or confirmations, there are no hidden or
extra charges beyond what is on the confirmation.
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Booking multiple units can be arranged subject to normal availability and policies. Generally
if you have need for a long stay or complex requirements like mutiple units, work well ahead of
your arrival. We often get fairly full 30 days ahead.
●
The house is located at a cool elevation of approximately 850 feet. It is on an acre of
ground. The structure is two level and contains three units. The bottom level has a studio unit
and a flat (or apartment) unit. The top level is a complete house which can be either a one
bedroom one bath or three bedroom two bath complex. The house is built Hawaiian style and
was meant to be walked in with bare feet, slippers or light sandals -- typical local style.
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All units are a two night stay minimum. If we do agree to rent for one night we surcharge
$20, still likely a better rate than a hotel. The $20 surcharge is per unit, for example if you
are booking "The Whole Enchilada" that is all three units ($20 x 3 = $60).
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The base cost of each unit assumes the number of people normally accomodated and this
varies by unit but is clearly stated in the RATES and FEATURES page; for extra people beyond
the set number it is $10 each extra person/night. You can offset this charge by adding a roll
away bed (subject to first come first serve) at no extra charge. If you book less people than
actually are in your party and the number of people actually in your party exceeds the
base rate, we reserve the right to charge you $20 each extra person/night.
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If you are coming in soon, best to call -- so we can expedite the process; we will need some
time to get to a computer to see our available times and process your quote; this is usually done
in email .
99% of all our communications and funds transfers are internet based. It is possible to
process over the phone, or with both methods but seeing your quote in an email is
much easier than trying to explain over the phone. Even if we are reachable by phone we
can't memorize our bookings we would need to check availability on-line. You can see
the same screen that shows our availability and check yourself on our calendar page:
http://www.KonaComfortRental.com/calendar <<click HERE>> to go to the calendar
REPEAT GUESTS (in good standing)...
DO NOT HAVE TO PAY A DAMAGE DEPOSIT
FOR THEIR FUTURE BOOKINGS!
REPEAT GUESTS (in good standing)...
HAVE THEIR RENTAL RATES FROZEN AT THE SAME RATE THEY FIRST PAID
FOR THEIR FUTURE BOOKINGS (same unit of course)!
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Turn off your fans and lights when you are not in a room or otherwise not using them,
electricity is very high in Hawaii, these things left on when you are not actually using
them is a waste of money and make rental rates go up unnecessarily.
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The satellite receiver if left on cannot download its programming guide for you to see what
is available in the menus.
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We will provide reasonable requests for extra bedding such as sleeping mats, etc. as a
courtesy FREE OF CHARGE subject to availability.
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In our experience most people carry their own cell phones. You may request a phone be
put into your unit. You can call 1+ FREE calls (i.e. your calling card, toll free numbers), and as
of 2/6/09 we have free long distance to Neighbor Islands and The Continental US; please note
that the phones DO NOT RING IN but are for out calling ONLY. If you have no cellphone, or
your service does not work in our area or you have low calling minutes on your cellphone, in that
case the wireless phone may come in handy for you and the calls you can dial are FREE OF
CHARGE (everything but international can be dialed).
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Iron and ironing board are provided in each unit FREE OF CHARGE.
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A Hair Dryer is provided in each bathroom FREE OF CHARGE.
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Our off street parking is FREE OF CHARGE.
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Credit card and other payment processing fees are absorbed in the rates, not added
or extra.
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We do have WIFI, and the use of wireless internet with your computer is FREE OF
CHARGE, subject to availability (some areas may be less strong than others) and your ability to
be computer savy enough to connect. Some ISPs will not allow you to send mail from outside
your ISP's domain and we have no control over such restrictions. We use two wireless
transmitters in tandem and any blockage of service is usually some metal between you and
either transmitter.
